


heartlines

by velleitees



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Japan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 09:16:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15682461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleitees/pseuds/velleitees
Summary: staying in london alone is somewhat difficult when phil's halfway across the world.





	heartlines

**Author's Note:**

> you can see the moment where i back out of writing smut haha. oops. also very ooc.

Pale dawn light drips all over the city just outside his window, and its colours blend with the everlasting gloom blanketing London — blue on grey on purple, pretty despite the lack of attention he’s paying to it. “ _It’s weird without you here_ ,” there’s soft breathing on the other end of the line, and Dan can imagine Phil wrapped in several towels, hair dripping wet, phone pressed loosely against his ear as he’s sat on a bed. _Another_ bed. A bed a long-haul flight, a bus ride, and one stop away, if you’re getting technical. “I wish you could see all of this in real life. It’s been really nice and I know you’d love it here, too.”

“Phil,” Dan says. He closes the blinds when the sunlight bothers his eyes. “Yeah, I just — you know unsurprisingly it’s been great without you? There’s finally no cereal crumbs on the floor.” Shuffling, light laughter. The ache in his chest he thought he left behind last night blooms again, and it almost hurts to breathe. “I miss you.”

“I want to see your face.” Low voice, even consonants. His feet touch the cold floor, taking him to the kitchen. “We could Skype if you want, Dan. I mean the internet’s pretty awful here but I don’t care—” Phil stops, maybe yawning. “You should’ve come with me.”

The fingers that hold his phone tighten, aching. It’s only a few more days, anyway. “You’ll be back soon, though, yeah?” he asks, to the nothingness around him.

“ _Dan_ ,” a soft sigh, barely there, barely anything, and Dan looks around the dark kitchen, picking up his mug — the black one beside Phil’s, somewhat absentmindedly, a bite to his lip. “I’ll be back in a week at most, there were some scheduling issues with the shoot and it’s been postponed for a couple days.” Phil notices the way he keeps quiet. “I’ve tried to talk with—”

“Okay.”

Phil lets out a noise, more tired than frustrated. “No,” he says, eventually, and his voice gets clearer through the microphone. “It’s not okay.”

He doesn’t respond.

Dan’s eyes fix on the empty bed when he finds himself back in the doorway of their room, and the silence through the phone is drawn. Polaroids, photo frames, pens, Phil’s smell everywhere — clean and fresh, entirely _him._ Looking around, Dan is undeniably, undeniably homesick.

A kind of pain stings his lungs, making it difficult to breathe right, so he drags his eyes away from the bed to the window. “You should sleep,” Dan mutters, sitting on the edge of the mattress, smoothing down the sheets on Phil’s side. It’s too cold all of a sudden. “The clock says that it’s one in Kyoto right now.”

“You set our clock eight hours forward?” The chuckle crackles against his ear, but he feels the corner of mouth quirk up. He did. Of course he did. “You’re an idiot, Dan.”

“— Says the biggest fucking idiot I know.”

“ _Debatable_.”

He smiles. It’s all a very innate conversation, very mundane. And a little less lonely, Dan slides back into bed, head on Phil’s pillow, phone clutched to his ear to hear the familiar inhale and exhale of Phil’s breathing, heart a little pained, a bit bruised, but mostly at ease now. “Goodnight, Philip.”

Silence consumes the line for a brief moment or two. “Good morning, Daniel.”

 

Fifteen hours later, Dan is browsing on his laptop, coffee steaming beside him, glancing at his phone every so often to see if Phil has called or texted or sent him pictures. He waits impatiently, of course he does, because the tight feeling in his chest doesn’t go away, and maybe he ends up walking to and from the living room, and maybe he checks his phone just one, or two, or three times an hour. He’s browsing the internet and ends up on one of those travel agency websites, casually types in London (all airports) to Kyoto, then bookmarks it.

And seventeen hours later, and Dan is 800 pounds short and in a state of half-panic, because it’s impulsive, because there are people watching their every move. One step out of place and they _know_. The suitcase under their bed is pulled out, and Dan waters the quickly dying plants (Phil’s doing, obviously). He checks his phone again. _One message_ (an image, a selfie) (he keeps the selfie) _._ He calls people to explain that he’s flying out of the country in ten hours, and his face is warm as he does so even though nobody can see, and he stammers his way through every single _yes, I’m leaving for Japan tomorrow_. Sighs, numerous ‘told you so’s, a fond ‘I won’t tell’.

— And now Dan’s sat near the boarding gate, earphones stuck in and his phone is stirring, the airport abuzz around him as he stares out at nighttime London. “Are you already missing me?” Dan asks, as he sinks deeper into his seat.

“You haven’t text back all day,” the reception is poor, and the static hindering, but it’s not enough for Dan to tell him to call again later. His voice is light, not upset, which puts Dan at somewhat of ease. “If I can properly recall, it seems as though you were the one missing me.”

Warmth stings his cheeks. “Ah.” It’s true, though, but he won’t admit this — he doesn’t need to.

Dan shifts in his seat, focused on the planes as they take off and land, its lights glaring against the glass window he looks out of. An announcement drones lazily above him. It’s quiet for a bit. “Where are you?” Dan coughs, eyes widening. The tone he’s met with is sceptical. Here, the reception is pretty shitty, yes, but not enough to miss the mechanical voice saying _London to Hong Kong._

“Nowhere in particular.” He curses under his breath, flustered, cupping the speaker. “Just, _out_ —” Somehow, Dan can see Phil raise his eyebrow. He clears his throat. “I left the house, Phil.”

“You left the house.”

“— Yes, Phil, I left the house.”

“Did you bring your jacket?”

Dan feels himself smile, biting his lip, averts his eyes to his lap, somewhat wary but mostly tired, mostly missing Phil. “I did.” He brought his whole suitcase.

“ _Good_.” It’s fond, so painfully fond, and it hurts him as much as it fills his bones with feelings he can’t name. A brief silence ensues. “Anyway,” Phil says, then, and Dan can hear how he fiddles with the phone, how it’s a sign that he needs to leave soon, “get home fast. It’s getting darker earlier now.”

“Talk to you tomorrow?” A girl stares with prying eyes. He turns his body away immediately, and his voice is just above a breath now. “And we’ll Skype, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “Of course.”

Then, several minutes later, he’s boarding.

 

The flight is a long one, and Dan twists and turns in his seat, restless, exhausted. He doesn’t sleep. Instead, he occupies his time with fiddling with his phone, and he finds himself looking through old and new photos, the ones hidden beneath all the others. Ones with him and Phil together, hazy, faceless, colours blurred; mouth on his, their hands touching, and there are ones that make redness creep up his neck when the flight attendant walks over to ask if he wants wine, or when the person sat beside him inadvertently leans into his space.

He touches down in Narita eventually, struggling to stay awake, jet-lagged. There’s several text messages from different people. The rest is a hazy blur of diamond blues and grey airports.

The city that unfurls before him is aflutter with history, all old and new, and it steals the breath away from his lungs. Blues and purples and reds merge by him, a neon dream before it melts and deepens into browns and green, green leaves. Dan falls asleep on the bus to Kyoto with his cheek pressed against the glass; there’s one missed call on his phone.

Morning has collapsed gently into midday by the time Dan gets to the hotel Phil’s staying in, and he stands in front of the room he booked alone, delirious, bewildered.

He dials Phil’s number, and—

“Must’ve been busy,” is the first thing Dan is met with, and it’s said in unnaturally cold monotones. Outside, daylight filters through the sheer curtains, grazing his skin, but the feeling in his stomach is cold, so cold.

“I—”

“God, Dan,” he closes his eyes. He sounds tired. “You can’t just do that — you can’t. I was worried about you. You disappeared, and no one would say anything.”

There’s heavy breathing through Dan’s speaker, like he can’t keep all the words at bay, and Dan has to swallow before he can speak again. “I’m sorry,” Dan says, and it’s weak, flimsy. He’s tired too. All there is between them are breaths crackling, thin and strained — and there are things they want to say, and things they don’t. The silence is almost unbearable. “Talk to me, Phil.”

“I’m asking to wrap up sooner,” he replies, finally. “I’m going back to the hotel tonight, and I’m packing, and then I’m going to finish up tomorrow. Then, afterwards, I’m going home, and then I’m going to see you.”

“Phil.”

“We need to film something soon, anyway.”

“Sorry—”

“No, I’m being dramatic,” Phil cuts him, and his syllables are brittle, his inflection tight. “Dan.” He looks down at his feet. Hurt is all there is, and it chokes the words out of his throat, making him sick with shame and longing, a messy combination. It’s trivial and purposeless, but these things run deeper — it always does. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, yeah — of course.”

It’s in a nap that darkens the world into a heavy blue that Dan gets up — that he shoves a few thousand yen in his pocket and his phone, heading out to clear his head.

Japan is far enough to give him a false sense of namelessness, and the people here are strangers, all strangers, and walking around without needing to avoid eye-contact is an odd experience. Kyoto is as pretty as Dan imagined it to be, maybe even prettier, as pretty as Phil described it in text messages. All winding streets and small stalls, some crowded with tourists, others not so much, and the sky above looks clearer, the stars brighter. A watercolour palette dripping with lilacs and indigo. The pain in Dan’s chest feels suddenly physical, and it stings the flesh between his ribcage, because he’s alone, because he sees the back of Phil’s head somewhere in the sea of people near the hotel, tall, blending in with the rest of the pretty shades Kyoto is painted with, and not getting close to him makes him feel like he might choke.

Under this light, when Phil turns, his face is illuminated into interesting angles by the soft glow of the lanterns. He walks over. Phil’s standing alone, idly. They stick out too blatantly, and there are people who might recognise them, but he reaches forward, anyway, fingertips timid. “ _Hey_.”

“What—,” Phil startles, turning, familiar eyes meeting his, and it turns his insides a mess. They’re grey and blue and lovely in this light. The same pair of eyes he always, always fell for, whether it be eight years back or now, six-thousand miles away from the home they share together. “ _What_ — Dan?”

“Hey,” he feels chagrin rise in his body, colouring his cheeks, and his neck, and his ears. Dan lets his fingers slip off Phil’s wrist, but Phil grabs onto his arm.

Phil stares, searching Dan’s face, questioning, hand not letting go. He hears the strangers with their silent footsteps, and how they pass them by without a glance. His mouth opens and closes, he licks his lips. “What are you doing here?”

The question is posed very, very softly, vowels tender in the many layers of his voice, Phil inching forward, hold on his arm never letting loose, just until they’re closer, and Dan stops breathing altogether. “I missed you,” he mutters, heart accelerating, its painful _thump, thump, thump_ reverbing through the hollow of his bones. Maybe Phil can feel it, too. “Thought you might’ve wanted to fucking know. Though you probably already do by now.”

“Yeah,” silvery steam wraps around Phil’s laughter. It’s cool out, and his touch on his arm burns. Dan’s missed this, missed everything. His eyes linger on his skin. “You don’t have a jacket.”

“I have it back at the hotel,” Dan says into the space between them, leaning forward, until they’re almost touching, but not, _not yet_. Wind flutters the lanterns hanging overhead, and he shivers.

Phil stares at him for the longest time, Dan stares back. “You booked a hotel?”

“Where’d you think I was going to stay?”

“— With me.” It’s a simple answer, a careless one, even though it excludes many variables Dan prefers not to think about, or care for.

He inhales, sharply, then swallows, blushing. A cacophony of languages is thrown back and forth in the background, but Dan’s rudimentary Japanese makes the words difficult to discern. “Nobody else knows,” Dan steps back as he scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed, “not anyone here, at least.”

“Oh,” Phil smiles, or smirks. The slightest yank, and the tips of their shoes are touching again.

He rolls his eyes, feeling strangely flustered. “Don’t say shit—”

And then Phil’s tugging him closer into an alleyway of some kind, and their feet stumble together, clumsily, foolishly, like they’re nineteen and twenty-three and can’t touch each other enough. Hidden in the shadowy magenta, his smile is wide, and crooked, and heartbreaking. Dan finds himself smiling, too. “— I’d say it’s sort of flattering someone flew eighteen hours because they couldn’t wait another four days to see your face, isn’t it?”

“ _Shut up_.” Arms slide around his waist, and Phil’s just a bit shorter, but it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. Inhaling deeply, Dan moves closer until nothing separates them, safe in the darkness of the heavy night, nose pressed to Phil’s shoulder, body all kinds of close. “I should’ve come with,” Dan’s words are muffled. “Would’ve saved all this mess.”

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.” Phil holds on, sighing when Dan pulls away to look around. “Let’s go back to the hotel?”

Dan nods. “Yours or mine?”

“ _Ours_.”

 

“It was meant to be a surprise, you know?” The sentence comes through once they step inside Phil’s room. The words feel small. There’s no frown on Phil’s face, just worry, a brow raised, a pink blush contrasting all his hues. His fingers linger on Dan’s wrist, and they trace his hand, his arm, his cheek. Dan lets out a breath, and it’s so shaky, so shaky, closing his eyes. “Sorry—"

“You’re fine, Dan,” he’s sat on the edge of the bed, and Phil is on his knees, removing his clothes slowly, eyes lingering on his face, on his skin. “You’re fine.” Once Dan’s shirt is on the floor, he slides under the duvet while Phil stands beside him. He’s staring. He is also inconveniently clothed.

“Get under here,” Dan insists, as he holds the covers up, letting him in, and their foreheads touch lightly. If anyone were to come in, they might not notice the two bodies under pale white covers. He can hear Phil’s light breathing, and how it evens out. “It’s four p.m. in London.” Phil hums. Around them, the silence is dark water, heavy on his body. “ _Fuck_ , I’m sorry — I wasn’t thinking,” the words unwilling slip out. His head hurts. “I just wanted to see you and I thought I had everything under control and I _did,_ but then you called and I just — your voice."

Dan’s breathing is heavy, and loud, and it seemingly echoes as the last words hang in the air. Phil holds onto him, he always does. He doesn’t look at him, the silence dragging. “We could’ve Skyped.” Dan snorts gracelessly, finally glancing at him through his eyelashes.

Phil chuckles, and when Dan closes his eyes, he leans in to kiss him. Content fills him entirely — consuming him, and it’s almost suffocating. He touches Phil’s face, Phil flicks him on the nose, easily. It’s a thing he’s gotten used to this for so long that not having it feels wrong. His weight beside him is warm, comforting, gratifying. “If this happens again we’ll actually go broke.”

“I guess you’ll have to come with me wherever, then,” Phil replies, nudging him. “Sounds good.”

“ _I guess_ ,” he scorns, mockingly, rolling his eyes. “Could be worse.”

They’re impossibly close under the duvet, and Phil is already overly permissible when Dan closes the distance, and Phil curls a hand around his thigh, sliding him closer if that’s even possible, pulling it over his hips. He sucks in air when they pull apart, lightheaded, like oxygen can’t get to him fast enough, noses touching. Dan’s eyes remain shut, he’s pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. Silently, tenderly, almost gentle enough, Dan slides the jacket off his shoulder, and Phil’s mouth drifts downwards, and his kisses are ghosts, delicate, in paths that make him involuntarily writhe. “Phil,” he’s whining, he can hear it. He holds onto Phil too tight, and Phil lets him. He looks up. “Are we fucking?” Dan asks, bluntly. Phil startles, sitting upright on the mattress, coughing.

“If you want to?” There’s redness about his face.

“Do you have—”

“No, no I don’t.”

“Oh—”

“We can—”

“Okay,” and his hands press until he can feel the bones beneath his skin, and the light eyes that look at him are colourless, pupils blown. No, no, they’re black holes — lips bitten cherry-red, matching the jacket he was just wearing.  Phil’s on his knees, and Dan’s breath stutters, sharp. The heart in the hollow of his chest beats awkwardly out of pace, and he’s nervous for some reason. But now, though, Dan is needy and wanting, and there are sounds in the back of his throat that barely stay unvoiced, coming out in the form of breathy sighs and stuttery gasps. “Phil,” it’s muttered between the kiss pressed against his mouth, when Phil has his jeans removed, and he scoffs, pushing back a little. “ _Phil_ —”

“What?”

“— You absolute _twat_.”

“Am I a twat now?” Phil leans back at that, eyebrow raised.

His hair is somewhat of a mess now, and Dan stares at him, whet, but also annoyed. “You ate sushi for dinner, didn’t you? You ate some kind of raw fish, and you come kiss me without brushing your fucking teeth,” he continues, cynical. “We had the rule.”

“I didn’t even have a _chance_ to. Wait, Dan—”

“No sex. I’m going back to my room. We had the no sex after sushi rule, and it still applies here, Phil Lester.”

He can feel the eyes on him as he goes around putting his clothes back on. There’s heat in the parts of his body that Phil touched — but minty freshness — it’s fairly important after sushi. “God, Dan.” Phil brushes past him, half-undressed, heading for the bathroom. The tap runs. Dan follows him in.

“You’re disgusting.”

Phil eyes him through the mirror, shaking his head, amused, and he spits the toothpaste into the basin, washing it out. Dan comes from behind, kissing the constellation of freckles on his shoulder while his fingers dip into the waistband of his underwear. “— Just saying, you look hot like this, too—” and he’s pushed briskly against the vanity, and it’s cold, and it digs into his back, and Phil’s mouth is cool and hot all at once. Dan groans, maybe because his back hurts and his knees are at awkward angles, or maybe because Phil stops, just hovering above him.

His face is what he touches next, then, and his smile is smug. “I think I’m going to take a shower now that you mention it. Since I’m — you know—,” his breath is hot against the shell of his ear, “ _disgusting._ ”

A rough shove, and Phil yelps, rubbing his arm, and Dan’s giggle is full of reckless delight as he pats him on the shoulder, complacent, while Phil complains. He heads back for the bed, sinking into the leftover warmth their bodies left. He feels irrevocably happy in the presence of Phil — it’s difficult not to. What things were and felt like before him seems so distant, so far away, and he can’t remember what it was like; he doesn’t want to, either.

“Hey.”

Phil smiles. “Hey.”

“You make me happy.” It’s a plain truth, and his tone lacks colour, because it doesn’t need to. Phil’s hands find his hipbones when he’s beside him again. He searches his eyes, and his face is breathtaking even under the lurid lights. He touches Phil’s hands carefully, over his own cheekbones, and they’re warm whereas his are cold, and there are certain things that never change. Affection spills over the edges of his chest, devouring his heart, painting his touch the deepest shades of red. It’s an unexpected confession, though it no longer embarrasses him like it used to.

“I could say the same,” he murmurs, voice impossibly affectionate as he tugs Dan in, and he feels smaller, body allowing itself to be pulled forward. The heart he feels beating capriciously beneath him is worth it. “So, do you want to still help me out, or?”

Dan swallows, punching his arm. “I will not. Fuck you, I’m going to bed.”

“I was just joking — I was just about to go to sleep,” he sounds sheepish. Dan chuckles, knocking his chin with his nose.

“I hate you.”

Phil just grins, shrugging when Dan props himself up on his elbows, a leg to each side of his body, and Dan’s face almost hurts from smiling so hard. Kyoto, just beyond the window, is swallowed by the violet night.

It’s here, he thinks later, that this is content in its rawest form. And when Phil looks at him, his bright eyes clear and blue and loving and true, he's failing to pronounce syllables, lungs malfunctioning — maybe his heart, too, and he feels every synapse in his body bristle sharply.

**Author's Note:**

> say hello i'm [velleitees](https://velleitees.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. :)


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